For some reason that I can't understand, getting a paint finish that we are satisfied with has been very elusive. We did 2 coats this past week, but still were not quite happy with the results. We got her all sanded again yesterday but it turned out to be too cold and windy to paint today so that last (I hope) coat will have to wait until next weekend.
The weather was also too cold for the resin work I had hoped to finish on the hatch. I kept putting it off thinking that perfect day was going to come before the break was over but it never did. I finally gave up and moved it inside. It is in the basement right now with an electric heater on it and epoxy hopefully kicking. (My thanks to Doug Hodder for his suggestion on how to get epoxy into my crushed edge. I was able to separate the plys enough to get the tip of a toothpick in there. I then brushed epoxy on the edge and blew it into the crack. I did this a couple of times. I know plenty went in because when I removed the toothpick a lot of excess squeezed out. I feel a lot more confident that corner has integrity and is waterproof now.)
Things I did get done: The fenders repainted and installed, the doors and vent installed, diamond plate on the front and new tongue box. I also did a little woodwork on a shelf for the cabin.
I already mentioned in a different thread the problems I had with the fasteners that came with my Fantastic Vent. I will say again, for the record, I have nothing bad to say about the vent itself. It is very attractive, seems to be well made (especially for the price) and works well. But the heads snapped off of two of the screws when I was tightening them down. There was really no way to extract the shanks without digging into my roof so I drilled new holes right next to the old ones, replaced all the screws with stainless steel and filled the old holes. I put the vent down with butyl tape. Each screw hole had a dollup of 3M 5200 squeezed into it before putting in the screw.
The doors came from Frank Bear at Vintage Technologies and I love them. I am so happy I decided to buy the doors. They are quality, work beautifully and were very simple to install. These doors have an interior trim ring that lines up with a channel in the door itself. In theory you use self tapping screws that go through pre-drilled holes in the trim ring and tap into that channel in the door. The only issue I had is that I'll be darned if I could get those screws to self tap, so I ended up drilling pilot holes. No big deal. The fit is beautiful, the door is beautiful, and I didn't have to build it!! If anyone is considering these doors for their build, I highly recommend them.
The fenders are screwed directly to my walls. I used a total of eleven screws on each side, 4 along the bottom that are 2" long and 7 around the arch that are 1" long. I sealed all around the edges of the fender with butyl tape to keep water from getting behind it and, again, 3M 5200 in all screw holes.
The tongue box was a real deal. We started out by buying the heavy duty tongue box from Harbor Freight. As we were carrying it home, all 58 pounds of it, we were wondering if it had been a good choice. It's a really nice box, roomy and seems to be well made, but just seemed too heavy for our little teardrop. Then we placed it on the tongue of the trailer and it didn't match up with the angle. It narrowed too much too quick so it ran off the rails. That gave us a good excuse to take it back. We purchased the light duty one instead which is a perfect fit for my tongue, weighs half as much as the other one, was on sale for $75 and with my 20% off coupon it was only $60. It's a very attractive box and has a key lock. It's not huge, but big enough for our hose, electrical cord, wheel chocks, bike locks and such.
We had a couple of cold rainy days so I used those to do some sewing. I cut our foam mattress in half from side to side. I wanted it to be stackable to free up floor space in case I wanted to store some items in the teardrop either in transit or when it's not in use. I also wanted two covers. One is a thick quilted utility fabric that is sewn on and is more or less permanent. (It can be removed if necessary simply by removing the hand stitching along one edge). The other cover is Sunbrella upholstery fabric and that one has Velcro closures so it can be removed for cleaning. That was four covers in two days. That's a lot of bobbin winding!!!
The only items left to install on the outside besides the hatch are the lights, rain gutters over the doors (and I am still uncertain whether i will put them on or not), and the electrical inlet.
The hatch just needs one more coat of resin on the outside, paint and trim and I will be ready to install it. At that point we will be campable. I'm estimating another 3 weeks unless we have a string of rainy weekends. I was beginning to doubt I would ever get to this point, but it's feeling pretty good right now!!
I want to thank Lance for all his hard work this week. Sanding, sanding and more sanding, painting and painting again, running to help every time I called his name. I know I don't say it enough, I couldn't have done this without him!!
